How Everyday Investors Can Access US Real Estate Through Private Equity (w/August Biniaz) [TJP Ep51]

In this episode of The Journey, Leo sits down with August Biniaz, co-founder and CIO of CPI Capital, a cross-border private equity firm that has closed over $225 million in multifamily and build-to-rent assets across the US Sun Belt. Their mandate from day one: give Canadians access to US real estate through their retirement accounts, something almost no one else had figured out how to do.

August grew up in Iran, where real estate was the only hedge against hyperinflation. He got his license in his twenties, did fix and flips, built custom homes, ran a construction company, and eventually realized the ceiling was too low. Private equity had no ceiling. So he built one.

This episode is part deal structure deep dive, part cross-border investing masterclass, and part founder story about betting on a market nobody else was serving.

👉 What you’ll learn:
🏗️ From fix and flips to custom homes to a $225M private equity firm
🇨🇦 Why Canadians are underserved when it comes to US real estate exposure
🏦 How CPI structured a cross-border fund that files US taxes on behalf of Canadian investors
📊 Multifamily vs. build-to-rent: risk profiles, return targets, and when each makes sense
🤝 How he found his co-founders including why his wife became the best investor relations person in the room
💡 The Alex Hormozi framework that convinced him to stop home building and go bigger
📉 Why rent control in Canada is bad for consumers not just investors
🎯 The one thing he would do differently: stop chasing shiny objects sooner